Backdrifts
by KT the Shimmer Skank
Summary: Additional scene for Our House. Three months after the abortion, Craig and Manny face one another for the first time. [oneshot]


**Backdrifts**

Rated M for shameless abuse of the f-bomb and mentions of abortion. That's about it, though.

Author's Notes: This takes place during the episode "Our House." To read this you're going to have to step back, put yourself back in the mindset of late season three. Craig's a cheating manwhore, Ashley and much of the female population hates him, J.T. wants to ask Manny to the dance, and Manny's all sulky because she's the resident slut with a dead baby. (Just recapping for you.) Haha, and FYI, I had a hard as hell time trying to figure out what genre this would be considered. I don't own Degrassi, of course. The title is a Radiohead song, lyrics of which are included in the opening. I don't own those guys, either, but I'd sell my soul for just a piece of their collective brain. I think I've covered it all... Um, review because you love me. Cake and kisses. Enjoy.

o o o o

I am sixteen and fragile. I'm sure it's obvious to everyone that I'm a little... unbalanced. I mean, yeah, I'm that zaney abused kid with messy hair that walks around with a camera all the time. It's hard NOT to see the slight weirdness of me. But for the most part, I think, most people never used to see anything more harmless than my usual weirdness. I mean, hey, it's Craig. That kid's a trip. Nothing odd about that.

I guess most of the time, I buy into that, too. I believe that I am nothing more than the odd little hipster eccentric. My life has always been a little off-beat and I'm cool with that. I have a good time living up to the reputation, actually. I don't like settling for normality. But then sometimes I just stop, I stop playing the part, I stop living up to Craig Manning infamy. I _stop_, and I look around, and I realize, oh my God, this is my fucking life. I realize just how crazy and fucked up everything is around me. It hits me all at once and I feel like, shit, I can't go on living like this. How can _anyone _live like this?

But like I said, you wouldn't really know all that just by looking at me. Even by hanging out with me on a regular basis, you probably couldn't tell just how crazy it gets in my head sometimes. On the outside I'm just Craig: a little weird, but ever mellow. I guess most of that can be attributed to frequent marijuna smoking. It's the only way I can keep my head, really. I fog up my vision and conceal the bitter truths that I don't have the strength of character to face. It started out simple, you know, just an inevitable result of hanging out with Spinner too much over summer break. But then there was like, this whole issue with Ash driving me insane with all of her expectations of me, and then of course the whole issue of needing to numb the unceasing guilt I felt for banging Manny on the side, and of course there's always grades and Joey and just fucking EVERYTHING... So yeah, it helps to smoke a little bud. Or a lot of bud. Whatever. I just need to sleep at night, you know? We all have to get there somehow.

And I mean, I'm not just your typical pothead. I have like, good reason and shit. The only male role models I've had in my life are my dead, neurotic, controlling, abusive mother fucker of a father, and the self-proclaimed playboy entering his thirties and still having no clue what it means to be an adult, a partner in a responsible relationship, or least of all a father, Joey Jeremiah. Taking that into consideration, I think it's obvious that I was bound to screw up every now and again. And I do. Alot. Which brings us to me, sixteen years old, father of an aborted fetus, grade ten winding to a close, sulking in my lonely days with heaping helpings of pot, always just inches from my breaking point.

The story of Manny and Ashley and me is so tired it isn't worth repeating. Like, ever. Its magnitude has swept through the halls of Degrassi so many times that it has gone beyond cliche, beyond legend, and now remains simply as common knowledge. My big fuck-up, etched into the collective unconscious of the entire student body. Even some teachers look at me with accusing eyes from time to time. I felt guilty at first, but after awhile that shit just got old. I mean, Christ, I'm human. Is it really nessecary for me to wallow in guilt for all eternity, continually apologizing to the world for my innate ability to be a complete asshole? Nobody can live like that. So I did what I always do. I smoked a joint, hid the pain away, and kept moving on with my life.

But there are always moments of weakness, of course. There are always little things that linger and remind me. Like Angie's eyes, that remind me constantly of my mother, or scars from my dad's beatings that have yet to heal, there is always something to remind me of the pain I try to hide. The thing that haunts me now is her. I see her everyday, creeping through the halls like I don't exist, like we never existed together. Like all she wants to do is forget. I don't have a problem with that, honestly. I'd fucking love to forget. But I mean, how can I with her there? She looks so much like a ghost to me.

My friends have started to notice the change in me. They mention that I'm not myself lately, that I seem distant. They don't know the half of it. I feel like I'm drowning. Every time I try to breathe I feel like screaming. When I look around I get the suffocating feeling that my world is caving in. Every time I turn around there's Ashley, reminding me of how badly I can hurt people. And then I turn again and there's Manny, and all I can think of is how I held her and told her I loved her and didn't mean it, and how she took away the only beautiful thing I ever made. I see Manny and I feel like I'll never be happy again.

It's getting freakishly similar to those last days I spent with Dad. Where things were getting really bad, and I was rotting inside but trying to polish it over so prettily on the outside. That's how my days creep by now. Dark, dark, dark on the inside, happy, happy, happy on the outside; forces pulling me in different directions until I feel like I'm just going to split in two. My camera is my only friend. I hide myself behind the lens and try to view reality in a slightly muted way. I've burned through roll after roll of film, just hiding from it all. Capturing the lives of those around me, caught up in their beautifully normal ebb and flow.

Today is a day just like all the rest. I feel too unsettled to eat at lunch so instead I just wander the campus, snapping pictures and ignoring the ripple of whispers and giggles that surround me. And who should I see, sulking in the glowing ghost-light that sets her apart from the crowd in my mind, on the brick wall behind the marquee? It's her, of course. Always there, haunting me, reminding me, killing me silently.

We haven't spoken since the day she told me she was going to kill my baby, but seeing her makes my heart sink so deeply that I finally feel like I can't take it any more. I've finally got to talk to her again, shatter this cold silence that stands between us. I walk towards her with a dead expression and sit down beside her. She tries not to look at me. "What's up?" I say, because apparently that's the most eloquent approach I can come up with.

She turns her head slowly to look at me with eyes as deep and dark as the grave. I swear I've never seen eyes as sad as Manny's. She looks like she's scared of me, which kind of offends me, because I mean, it's not like I would ever hurt her. On purpose.

"What do you want?" she asks, crossing one leg over the other and biting her fingernail nervously.

I shrug. I wish I knew what I wanted. "I was just saying hey. I haven't talked to you in awhile."

She stares dumbfounded at me, as if she's bewildered by the obviousness of my statement. She shakes her head. "Yeah, well, there's a reason for that. We broke up, remember?"

It's interesting how she says that so plainly. How she simplifies it so easily. I almost want to laugh. I mean, Manny and I never broke up. We never even got together. Things were never so clean cut as that. You can't possibly look at our story and give us a specific beginning or end.

I mean, when did it start? Our first conversation? Our first slow dance? First date? First kiss? First time having sex? First unplanned pregnancy? I mean, I fucking never could have seen any of this coming. All Manny ever was to me was a random cute girl. All she ever should have been was a random cute girl. How she grew from a slight flicker in the corner of my eye to the downfall of my entire universe, I'll never know. It's like putting a quarter into a gumball machine and having a five-course meal come out the bottom. I'm still too bewildered to even comprehend it.

And more importantly, when did it end? Did it really end? It seems like we start over again and again, ever backdrifting into the black hole known as Craig and Manny. It's a ferris wheel of mixed emotions and painful consequences. It's making me nauseous, and no one will stop the fucking ride.

I weave my fingers together as I hold them between my knees, sighing and staring out into the lively lunchtime crowd. Everything's moving so fast around us, bathed in laughter and sugary May sunshine. I feel like Manny and I are the only ones who aren't smiling. A raincloud hovers over us, concealing us in shadow and separating us from the normality around us. No one knows what it feels like to be us. We are the cursed. The living dead.

"Yeah," I say. "I know. I'm... sorry."

Manny puts her hands into the pockets of her vest and looks at me with the slightest tinge of impatience. "You don't have to be." I want to laugh again. Doesn't she know that all I can ever be over us is sorry?

"But I am. I really am." Can't she throw me a bone here? I can't stand to have her haunting me any more. There's too much weight on me already, and Manny's the final stone that's pulling me under. "I just want to make sure that you're okay. How have you been since..." Since you killed my baby. Baby-killer.

She bites her lip, almost angrily. "I'm fine, thanks," she answers with the sassy sarcasm I've grown more than accostomed to. Manny seems so gentle on the surface, but when she's pissed, people all the way in fucking Brazil get a chill down their spine. "You still hate me, I guess? Because I'm not sorry about what I did."

I frown. I'm trying to think back, now, and remember if I ever hated Manny. Or if I've always hated Manny. I never can understand just how I feel about her. It isn't something I think about in great detail. Manny is just... there. Always. I deal with her. Always. And I guess there are times when she really pisses me off or times when she really makes me happy, but most of the time I'm just so used to taking her for granted that it doesn't seem to matter how I actually feel. I just... never planned on Manny. Never was there the meticulous pondering, the endless hours of dreaming, the slow and torturous falling into, the gradual growth of something solid, like I had with Ashley. Ashley was the one I chose, the one I worked for, the one I asked for. Manny was the one that I just kind of covered my eyes, spun around, and pointed at.

And yet she's the one whose path I keep stumbling into.

When she told me about the baby, that was like, the great moment of clarity. I understood, finally, that there was no escaping Manny. She wasn't just a random cute girl. She wasn't just a bad first date. A one-night stand. A side girl. She was part of my life. She was an integral piece of the dysfunctional Craig Manning puzzle. We fucking made life together. We'd finally gotten in so deep that I just gave up and resigned myself to drowning in our mess. I mean, we were going to have a kid together. That was that. This was forever. It wasn't what I'd planned, but it was what I was given. I was fated to spend the rest of fucking eternity with my random cute girl. And I accepted it.

But then, what? She fucking got an abortion. She wasn't ready to give in like I was. She didn't understand the brilliance of our mistake. A baby would have been the perfect excuse to leave my reality. I mean, think of it. I could stop worrying about girls forever. Never again would I have to play games and torture myself in my head, juggling girls and trying to figure out how I could want two completely different people at the same time. Because Manny was the mother of my child, and there was no one else to be distracted by. Never again would I have to deal with the awkwardness between Joey and I when I remembered I wasn't his son. Because I would have my own family to worry about. I could stop driving myself crazy over all the endless winding drama of my life, and put all my energy into Manny and the baby. Responsibility would overwhelm all that other bull shit and leave me with nothing to do but take care of them.

But Manny's just so fucking selfish. She had to take that all away. And now here I am again, drowning in reality, trying to find my way to the surface again. I wish I'd never met her.

"I don't hate you, Manny." And I don't. As much as I want to, I can't. I can't hate the only person in the world who feels as dead inside as I do. "Do you hate me?"

Her black eyes grow darker as she gazes at me, soaking me in. She ponders her answer carefully, pursing her lips and hugging her own arms slighty. She exhales. "No. I don't."

"Are you okay? I mean, are you really? If there's anything I can do to help, let me know." I say this because I'm supposed to be a gentleman, but I hope to God there's nothing she wants. Because I don't know if I would have any idea where to start.

"I'm fine," she says. She smile-frowns in that signature Manny way. She looks anything but fine and I wonder if she's always been this broken. Maybe she has, and I just never noticed before. "Really. I'm doing okay." She sighs and looks in the opposite direction. I think she's distracted by something, but all I see is a bunch of people milling around on the steps and J.T. staring blankly around him, like he's lost or something.

"Uh... Manny?" I wave my hand in front of her face.

She turns back to me. "Huh? Oh. Sorry. Yeah, I'm fine. Hey... I have to go. I need to go do something." She stands up, and immediately it feels like she's a hundred miles away. No, don't leave me yet. You're the only one left for me to reach out to. Don't leave me to sink again.

I reach for her arm, and I realize this is the first time I've touched her since that day. "You're... you're leaving already? I thought we could talk some more."

She sighs with impatience. "I don't want to talk, Craig. There's nothing to talk about. I've got something to do, really."

Well whoop-dee-fucking-do. I spent three months avoiding her, and now she's going to turn it around and avoid me? This is so not the way it's supposed to work. Manny is supposed to be forever lovesick over me, pining for me always, even when I'm fucking sick of her. She's supposed to be waiting for me, whenever I start going a little crazy and need a good dose of her to balance me out. And now she's leaving. For some reason the thought of her leaving makes me feel lonelier than I've ever felt in my life.

And suddenly, I get it. I've got nothing left. Fucking everything in my life is gone. The only thing left within my reach is Manny.

I stand up and step towards her. "Well, hey, before you go... got a date for the dance?"

Manny's face turns white, like she just saw a dead body on the side of the road or something. She looks terrified. "What?" she asks, eyes bent in concentration.

"The dance... I mean, I wasn't even going to go, but they want me to come take pictures for the yearbook... We should go together. I mean, it's not like anyone else would go with either of _us, _right?" I laugh, because hell, that's funny. But Manny doesn't laugh. She doesn't even crack a smile.

"Are you... are you fucking kidding me? You want me to go on a _date _with you?" I gaze blankly at her, unsure if this is a rhetorical question or not. Manny only drops the f-bomb when she's mad as hell, so I'm a little worried as to where this is going. "Craig... we can't just... you can't just mess with my head like this. Where have you been for the past three months? I got an _abortion_, Craig. I got an abortion because _you _got me pregnant. And where have you _been_? You can't just... you can't just ask me to a fucking dance." Her eyes sparkle with the onset of tears. She's breathing heavy, trying to hold them in. I wish I understood what the fuck she was saying.

"Manny, I..." I reach forward and put my hands on her shoulders. Oh, hear we go again. "Don't cry, look... what do you want me to do?"

There's the smile-frown again. Slowly, she peels my hands off of her. For a minute she just looks at me, the kind of look she gets when she's about to lean in for a kiss, but instead she covers her mouth and shakes her head. A few strong-willed tears manage to erupt from their black tombs, sliding down Manny's face. "Please don't do this again. Don't pretend like you care. Because you're just going to hurt me again."

I drop my eyes and stare at the gray concrete. I breathe. I mean, she is right. I am going to hurt her again. Because I'm just that good at being a world-class prick. But it does mean that I don't care. I lift my head and look at her, sincerely, pleadingly. I touch her chin. "Manny... Manny, sometimes... Sometimes it's just you and me. Sometimes I feel like that's all we have left."

She groans in irritation. She's stuck in that feeling, that feeling that hits the midway point between totally fucking furious and totally fucking miserable. She wipes the tears from her cheeks. "No, Craig. Just... no. I don't want to do this right now."

She turns and walks away, disappearing into thin air, like an apparition. She's gone. I am totally and completely stunned. I thought for sure I knew how this conversation was going to turn out. And I was one hundred percent wrong. Figures. Every time I think I've got a pattern pinned down for this Manny thing, something totally off the wall happens. I sit back down on the brick wall, invisible to the world, and sigh.

"What the fuck?" I ask myself aloud.

Great, Craig. Now you're talking to yourself. As if people don't have enough to gossip about you already. But then again, fuck them. They just don't know. They see what they want to see. Craig Manning, that emo kid/asshole/dirty cheating scumbag/guitar player/abused kid/weirdo. They just don't understand that my head is always telling me two different things. They don't understand that I'm trying as hard as I can. They don't understand that sometimes, I just can't fucking help myself.

The bell rings and it's time to go back to class, but I think I'll just skip. I need a joint. And a sandwich. And then I'll be okay. It's not like it's over, after all. My life will collide with hers again someday, probably when I least want it to. And who needs a fucking prom date, anyway?


End file.
